Canadian politicians have been in the pockets of Canadian Media Corporations for decades. Where else in the world can you find a country where the ENTIRE palette of media is owned by 3 companies?

Challenge: How do you bribe a politician to help you legislate more money out of consumers without making that politician look like he's betraying his own constituents?

Answer: Ask politician to contact counterpart in U.S. to do the dirty-work in the name of protecting 'American Intellectual Interests' so to appear 'uninvolved' and then Canadian politician can 'agree' and defend lobby by claiming it protects crucial interests and confidence with U.S. trading partners.

Finally, take both politicians on fully-expensed holiday to some 6-star resort in Dubai, have someone take lots of secret photos whilef scantily-clad call girls hand each a suitcase full of cash; and then threaten their existence with public humiliation and prison if they ever refuse to support the new measures.

Bethesda is really opening up a can of worms here. Do they honestly think that, in the history of gaming (electronic or otherwise), that they have any exclusive rights to the use of 'scrolls' within a fantasy game? At the end of the day, ALL fantasy games owe allegiance to one company and one only:
TSR Incorporated.

What seperates Bethesda from TSR is that TSR was only interested in people enjoying their games rather than chasing down any third-party designer who happened to like what they did and infuse elements into their own creations.

What's more, all rights to TSR were bought by 'Wizards of the Coast' who are now owned wholly by Hasbro Inc. If Bethesda does get anywhere with this stupid legal action, perhaps someone should send Hasbro a little note to see if they would like to make Bethesda their legal plaything for a while.

Old advice but still relevant: Be careful what you wish for; you might just get it.

If you follow the trail of breadcrumbs back to the source, there's no doubt in my mind that you will find 'Experiment 626' bearing a striking resemblance to a love child conceived by Mark Zuckerberg and the Basset Hound that lives next door to him.

AC said: "A big thumbs up to Howard Stringer for speaking the truth, the one the "freetards" don't want to hear. It's just too bad that Techdirt is trying so hard to bury reality."

I have a Sony BluRay player (currently anyway)that will play DVDs. Now TECHNICALLY it is a BLURAY player designed to play BluRay discs BUT I bought it because it plays DVDs as well.

For the sake of argument, let's pretend that Sony decides that BluRay discs aren't taking off as good as they'd like and they release a firmware 'update' to block DVD playback because those pesky DVDs are screwing up consumer incentive to use Sony's own services.

1. Sony just broke my player and I want my money back -or-
2. If Sony gives me the finger, I will find any way possible to reactivate my lost feature.

Microsoft has been hiring hackers for years. The difference is: Microsoft invites hackers to break them and reward the talented hackers with money and jobs. Works a bit better than covering eyes and ears, doesn't it?

I predict that in twenty years, we shall only listen to music in authorized 'listening booths' where each listening is billed to an account or upon insertion of money. Playback will only begin once the booth has established that you are the only person in the booth (via thermal imaging scan) and that the soundproof door is securely closed (to prevent unauthorized listeners who might be standing outside the door from 'stealing.'

The notion of owning and listening to a radio will become a privilege of the wealthy who will be billed automatically for every song decoded on each instance of playback. For the rest of us, oversized noise-cancelling(preventing noise from leaking out, that is) headphones will be the norm where music on the go is accomplished via encrypted 5g connection and the popular music of the day are 1950's singles because they are short, old and cheap. Prepare for our brave new world! -where the rich and famous wander music-filled hallways while the rest of us walk around dressed as 'Cybermen' spending our pennies a couple hours a day to rock out with The Everly Brothers.